Combining Social Media & Local Radio

Since I work in both of these medias, I found this very interesting. Hope you do too:

Content Marketing Today

Deliver a Content Marketing K.O. with a One-Two Radio Combination

Build Your Brand and Your Business by Using Local Radio to Drive Prospects to Your Blog

The key to a powerful online presence is great content that targets your best buyers. Over time, as you increase the critical mass of relevant and compelling content, you will attract increasing levels of traffic. This is the essence of content marketing strategy. But, you can do more without breaking the bank by extending and enhancing your online persona with carefully crafted radio commercials.

Although traditional media is facing enormous challenges, smart media companies will certainly survive. I became even more convinced of this following my recent visit to Roanoke Virginia where I spent some quality time with the Mel Wheeler, Inc. radio folks and quite a few of their customers and prospects.

Wheeler, and especially my host, Lynda Foster, work closely with clients to help them succeed by teaching them how to do a better job of marketing. This may not always result in immediate radio advertising dollars, but it does strengthen the local businesses and the business community. I am certain that it will ultimately bond dozens and dozens of local advertisers to Wheeler’s Southwest Virginia radio stations as we work our way out of the recession. This is great content marketing by Lynda and her colleagues.

Accelerating the impact of content marketing with smart radio strategies

As we explored the ways in which enhanced content marketing strategies could benefit many of Wheeler’s customers, what became obvious was that, by combining terrific online content with the power of radio to drive targeted traffic, even very small companies can achieve accelerated marketing results. This is especially true in the arena of personal branding.

Superb content marketing creates a powerful personal brand because it establishes you as an expert in your field. It positions you as the person that you’re current and future customers can trust to solve their problems.

The first, and most important step in establishing your content marketing presence is to create a blog powered website which is chock-full of timely, targeted, and compelling content.

The second very important step is to establish a promotional strategy which moves lots of prospective customers to your online home. Much of this will be done by maximizing your site for search engines so that you are easily findable by Google and its competitors. But that strategy takes time to succeed. You can generate tangible results more quickly by adding other marketing weapons to your arsenal. It seems to me that a smart local radio campaign may be an excellent next step.

Here’s why I think radio plus content marketing can be a powerful combination:

• You can easily extend the reach of your content marketing approach to a 60 second radio spot. You can do your own commercials in which you share content that is intrinsically valuable and that is an engaging introduction to what’s available online. Thus, you are both strengthening your personal brand and driving traffic to your website.
• Radio is both a personal and a local media entity. This makes it appropriate for small companies who market within the local economy and are trying to build personal brands in the minds of their prospects.
• Radio is one of the more affordable of the traditional media choices. Although the cost varies by market, Lynda Foster pointed out that an effective radio campaign would probably cost about as much as a one third page ad in the Yellow Pages. This might translate into $1500-$2000 per month in a market like SW Virginia where Wheeler is located.
• Radio advertising results are easily measured, particularly if you are asking people to go to your website. All marketers are looking for tangible ROI for their marketing investment. Unlike many other choices, the ability of radio to drive traffic instantly to your content rich website delivers exactly such results. Very importantly, with tools such as Google analytics you can measure results precisely, including the time of day visitors flocked to your site following a commercial.
• Your local radio stations can help you create effective 60 second spots. Few of us know what works well as advertising within a medium such as radio. Fortunately, the folks who are working with you to develop a campaign are experts at creating commercials designed specifically to generate traffic.
• You can experiment with different approaches such as time of day, programming format, frequency, and message without being locked in full year contract as you are with the Yellow Pages. Because your results will be almost immediate, it is easy to fine-tune your approach to maximize its effectiveness. If it’s not working, stop. If it’s working do more of it.

One critical note: make sure that you’ve got a critical mass of really solid content available for your visitors before you launch any kind of aggressive marketing campaign. There’s no point in spending money and driving prospects to a website bereft of rich, meaningful, and well organized information.

The bottom line: you must have an effective content marketing strategy. An intelligent local radio campaign can help you accelerate results for that strategy, particularly if it is important to build your personal brand.

To see some of the outside the box marketing and business help Wheeler is giving to the regional business community, check out their ‘Synergy Session’ program by clicking here.

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